


The Promise

by aejrogota



Category: Dissidia: Final Fantasy Opera Omnia, Final Fantasy VIII, Final Fantasy XIII Series
Genre: Angst, Attachment theory, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Crossover, Dialogue-Driven, Drama, F/M, Opera Omnia, Pining, Rinoa's POV, Short One Shot, Slice of Life, Snow goes on a cycle quest, Video Game Mechanics, Yearning, argument, two newfound green crystal comrades
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-24
Updated: 2020-12-24
Packaged: 2021-03-10 21:29:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28293864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aejrogota/pseuds/aejrogota
Summary: Snow chances upon Rinoa in a flower field in the world of darkness as Snow prepares for a sortie. The two see shadows of their partners in each other and are reminded of promises made and of promises yet worth keeping. (Set after Act 2 Chapter 4: For Someone’s Sake, some time after the lost chapter mission The Power of Innocence, Part 8.)
Relationships: Rinoa Heartilly & Serah Farron, Rinoa Heartilly & Snow Villiers, Rinoa Heartilly/Seifer Almasy (past; implied), Rinoa Heartilly/Squall Leonhart, Serah Farron/Snow Villiers
Kudos: 3





	The Promise

Short white flowers canvassed the floor of the broad valley. Each and every one of them faced towards Rinoa and the reddening sun behind her. A warm breeze rolled across the field; it shifted the flowers about in gentle arcuate waves which billowed out in lobes from her direction. The field roused in gentle rustling protest but stood firm even against the wind’s coaxings.

The wind also carried the sound of errant chatter from where the warriors of light had chosen to make camp for the night. Rinoa did not yet hear his voice among them. A quiet sense of sinking she could not quite shake roiled unchecked in her chest and restless mind.

Rinoa had conjured a too-big picnic blanket into existence. She laid it over a small open patch of rich loam, took a seat at one of its corners, and waited for something.

“Heya!”

Rinoa turned her head in the direction of Snow’s heavy footfall. She waved with a smile. Snow greeted her with a two-finger tap on his temple and a click of the tongue. He stopped short of approaching her and took in the grand view of the valley beyond.

“I’m guessing it was you who made all of this?”

Rinoa shifted uncomfortably. It would have perhaps been more accurate to say that this moment in Centra had made _her_. She fixed her gaze back on the horizon with a morose smirk.

“This place doesn’t let the heart any of its secrets, it seems.”

Rinoa closed her eyes and shook her head. She shifted her seating so she could look at Snow without craning her neck. After a moment her expression brightened.

“Anyway, what’s up? Just came by to say hi?”

“Yeah! I just saw you around. I’m heading out soon on mission but was on the lookout for movers and thunder flan. Maybe a cactuar or two if I’m lucky.”

The grizzled man gave her a thumbs up. With a facetious grin he flexed his bicep, stirring up a dimly familiar glimmer in Rinoa’s memory.

“Wanted to see if I could get a bit of an edge before heading out. But I couldn’t find any monsters in these fields. I guess the world gave you the peace and quiet you wanted when you came out here.”

She scoffed too lightly for him to hear. Suddenly, Rinoa sat upright, her interest piqued.

“You were hunting thunder flan?”

“Yeah. Know where I can find them?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that.”

She outstretched her hand. Milky ensorcelled clouds folded into a helix around her arm and coalesced in her palm. From the mist emerged a soft emerald glow; brilliant green crystals began to emerge from the nebulous mass.

“How much do you need, Snow?”

He chuckled heartily and shook his head.

“Come on, hurry up! It’s getting heavy.”

Raising his hands in mock surrender, Snow walked over to Rinoa and picked several dozen green crystal shards and clusters from the mystical edifice in her palm. Backing away, he breathed deeply and closed his eyes, focusing as the green crystals began to levitate in constellations around him. Their pale glow overpowered the ruddy backdrop of the dying dusk but was not harsh on Rinoa’s eyes. All at once, the crystals converged on Snow’s chest, surrounding him with an aura of green light and causing a loud shattering sound which emanated across the valley. It scared a few distant cockatrices into flight. When he opened his eyes, they shone green with his newly imbued strength; a few veins in his face and forearms rippled with the same ghostly glow. The lightshow subsided after only a few seconds, leaving the two of them standing apart in the newly settled silence.

Rinoa returned to her picnic blanket and took a seat, wrapping her arms around her knees. She hoped yet to catch the sunset’s end. The fire in the sky had already burned itself over, leaving ephemeral streaks of cotton-candy pink on the undersides of blue clouds in the distance. She chuckled, but a flat sourness colored her voice.

“I never really understood why the gods went out of their way to give us different crystal colors. All it means to me is that I can’t pool my strength with Squall.”

Snow looked at her skeptically.

“It can’t be _that_ surprising, right? There’s not just Squall. Shadow? Noct? Kain? They’re all so moody, so dark!”

Snow waved his hands in the air dramatically before continuing.

“Of course they’d all have the same crystal color, and of course that color would be black.”

Rinoa didn’t react. Snow dusted a bit of loam off his coat.

“I mean, I wish _my_ crystal color matched my outfit.”

Rinoa frowned, distracted by a troublingly inscrutable thought.

“What do you think that says about us?”

“I dunno. I’m too dumb for that sort of stuff.”

He shrugged. A silly smirk was plastered on his face.

“As long as I’m here, all I know is one thing. And it is that so long as Serah is here, I have my work cut out for me protecting her. I’m just lucky that she loves that about me.”

Rinoa cocked her head in consternation. She and Serah had grown close enough in the world of respite for her to recognize an incongruity to his words.

She turned to Snow expectantly.

“So, have you guys decided on a wedding date?”

Snow quickly looked to her, clearly caught off guard by the question. Any semblance of friendliness had vanished from his demeanour but hadn’t yet given way to an anger or hostility.

“Or…is it still on hold?”

Whatever compelled her questioning made her feel a little sick to her stomach.

After a painfully long silence, Snow responded, his voice low and restrained.

“Rinoa, you of all people should understand why I decided she had to wait.”

She looked away from him again, her voice now as tense as his.

“No. I don’t think I do.”

“This world could fall apart at the seams at any moment. _I_ could lose her again at any moment. I can’t afford for her to let her guard down. Not yet.”

Rinoa bristled at his tone.

“Do you really trust her so little? She’s not a child -”

“You understand nothing about how I trust her! She died, in someone else’s arms, at the end of our world because I – “

Snow trailed off, the voice in his last words breaking into the strengthening wind. An uncharacteristic darkness had crept into his tone, one that Rinoa had never heard before.

“There is a price we pay so the likes of you can do things like watch sunsets in a flower field.”

Rinoa stood up quickly and turned to him with a sneer, nearly ready to strike him.

“A price to be paid by who, exactly!? You think I don’t know what I—”

Rinoa's voice faltered.

“—What she stood to lose? What she sacrificed to get as far as she did? While you were traipsing around time doing Hyne knows what, she wasn’t some wallflower waiting for you to sweep her off her feet to safety!”

“Those are some pretty bold words, coming from you.”

Rinoa stared at him, stunned.

“Anyway, Rinoa, I don’t know what she’s told you, but you don’t understand her as well as you think you do.”

“No! I don’t think _you_ do!”

The breeze at last light strengthened into a gale and turned Snow’s coat into a sail. He gripped the left sleeve as it slid off his arm, trampling the flowers beneath his feet in his clumsy haste. Rinoa glanced around in alarm before taking the world’s cue to heart.

“I’m…not looking for a lecture. I didn’t come out here to feel even worse.”

Unclenching her jaw, Rinoa returned to the blanket and took a deep breath. It took every ounce of focus to stop herself from coming apart but she managed to get ahead of her mind’s tide. The gale ebbed with her anger, carrying a placid floral scent from the downvalley fields.

Snow, frowning, took a tentative step closer towards her but hesitated. After a moment he forced a smile.

“Hey, that was pretty brave of you to call me out like that. It takes guts to –“

“You should go.”

Rinoa fixed her gaze on the horizon as the last of the sunset’s colors peeled away into the blue darkness and the first of the stars came to light. Snow cleared his throat and nodded to no one in particular. He turned around to head back to camp just in time to run into the warriors returning from their long sortie.

* * *

“Hey, guys! She’s over here!”

Rinoa jerked her head so quickly she pulled a muscle in her neck. She could just barely make out their silhouettes at the hill’s horizon; Sazh, Quistis, Dagger. Serah.

Squall.

Even in Snow’s voice those words had poured over her like a salve. The moments that followed blended in a feverish meld; she somehow found herself in Squall’s embrace. Rinoa held him tightly as if to press him into a part of her soul which he could never leave. In his surprise, Squall’s frame had stiffened for only a second before he matched the desperation in her embrace. Pulses of warmth rolled over Rinoa’s body in shivers, pressing back against the chill of the oncoming night.

Sazh laughed from his belly at the sight of it.

“Oh my goodness! You’d think it’d been five centuries since you’d seen each other.”

Sazh could hear Dagger laugh from behind him, haltingly and politely, as if she didn’t really get the joke. He glanced over at Snow and Serah, searching for a reaction, but they didn’t hear him say a thing.

“Snow…you’re heading out already?”

Rinoa glanced up over Squall’s shoulder in response to Serah’s query. Snow looked defeated already.

“I promised Quistis and Sazh that we’d take down the bastion giants over at the volcano’s edge. It’s about our turn to head out from the camp.”

Snow shifted uncomfortably.

“I…have to do my part.”

“Dagger and Squall and I just got back from that way. The volcano is a three-day trek from here. Maybe four days.”

“Yeah. I know.”

Serah sighed. With a forced smile, Snow opened his arms to give her a bear hug. Serah walked into them slowly, wrapping her arms unenthusiastically around his frame.

Rinoa caught Snow’s gaze for just a second as he embraced Serah. He looked down at the ground for a few seconds before pulling away from his fiancée. Snow turned to his teammates and began to speak, but Dagger preempted him.

“You know, it’s been a while since Zack’s gotten out into the field. He’s been just hanging around camp.”

“He has been frantically doing squats everyday since the airship dropped us off. I don’t think even Tidus can keep up with him at this pace,” Quistis said with a chuckle.

“The princess and I will be passing by his tent in a bit anyway. Why don’t you and the missus take some time tonight to enjoy the stars?” Sazh offered.

Snow suddenly realized that Serah had been looking at him intently the entire time.

Rinoa looked away.

* * *

The stars under the new moon were as jewels. They cast a soft blue light on the valley of flowers – all now pointed downvalley - and on Squall’s face. Rinoa could make out the reflection of Griever dangling from his neck as they sat together on the picnic blanket and looked out over the flower field.

“So, what was all that about?”

Squall set aside his bowl of Tifa’s hellhound stew, careful not to disturb Rinoa as she rested on his shoulder. She shifted around anyway, relishing the friction of woolen warmth from his jacket.

“Hm?”

“You seemed really upset when we ran into you and Snow.”

Rinoa paused in thought.

“We got into an argument.”

“Huh? About what?”

“I’m…not sure.”

Squall waited for her elaboration. After a moment, he reached out to hold her hand.

“Well, it was about you. And also Serah. I don’t think we were arguing about the same thing. All I know is we were both really upset, and everything the other person said made it worse.”

Squall tensed up.

“Do you want me to go talk to him?”

“Don’t worry about that. He meant well, Squall.”

Rinoa shook her head and sighed.

“I did too.”

They sat together for some time in silence, heeding the sounds of nature’s restlessness; the familiar buzzing of insects they didn’t know the names of, the sound of the rustling wind. Rinoa smiled and snuggled Squall a little more closely.

Perhaps this is what Materia meant when she called this place a world of respite.

* * *

Rinoa recognized Snow’s heavy footfall even in the distance. They turned around to see him, his face illuminated by a torch lit from the campfire.

“Hey, lovebirds! Sorry to disturb your date.”

Snow had a weary smile.

“Rinoa, I wanted to apologize. Do you mind if we chat for a minute?”

Squall looked to Rinoa for a cue. She squeezed his hand hesitantly before getting up, planting a quick kiss on Squall’s temple.

Snow looked over at Squall and waved.

“She’ll be back soon enough! Don’t worry.”

The two strolled towards the campfire. They were close enough to see each other’s expressions without inviting the attention of other comrades still enjoying each other’s company this late at night. Serah, who had just joined the campfire group, saw Rinoa and Snow in the distance. She waved energetically at both of them. They each returned her greeting.

“So, it looks like Serah and I had the same idea as you two tonight.”

Snow smiled and shook his head.

“We followed Sazh’s advice and set a picnic blanket out under the stars. It gave us time to have a heart-to-heart. I didn’t know we needed it so badly.”

“Well, I’m just glad that you decided to stay.”

Snow nodded.

“You were right, by the way.”

“I know I was.”

Snow chuckled in surprise, a reaction which annoyed Rinoa. But his expression quickly became more measured and contemplative.

“And I was wrong. Not just about your take on Serah, but also how I treated you. I should not have put you down. I stand by you not just as Serah’s friend, but as my own, and I won’t hurt you like that again.”

There it was; that steely conviction in his voice. That which had drawn Serah to him in the first place, and which had carried him through the centuries on her behalf, even when he had lost all hope of seeing her again. Rinoa knew it instinctually.

And she believed him.

A single green shard, no longer than a fingernail, coalesced in her palm. She flipped it like a coin directly at Snow. He caught it and stared at it for a few seconds.

Snow looked up at her and held the crystal shard to his heart. With a smile, she walked away from Snow and back into Squall’s valley of flowers.

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been ruminating on what the crystal strength colors in DFFOO could mean for a while now, and I had the idea that they might refer to an individual’s attachment style and how completely it centers their identity as individuals in adulthood (after discussions summarized by Amir Levine and Rachel Heller, 2012; and the imago model of Harville Hendrix, 1988. In this case, green crystal strength implies an anxious attachment style which exerts a strong control on the fundaments of one’s identity). I had a lot of fun playing around with it in this context! Hope you all enjoyed.


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